staff together to create the game was a difficult process. Naora acted as producer as he did with Code Age Commanders, co-producing with Takanori Kimura. The director was Toru Osanai, while the character designs were created by Toshiyuki Itahana. The music was composed by Kumi Tanioka, who also worked on Commanders. Miwa Shoda, who had previously worked on SaGa Frontier and Legend of Mana, wrote the scenario. The storyline of Brawls was interconnected with that of Commanders and Archive to help players understand the full tale and how all the different stories fit together. When creating the gameplay, the team wanted to expand upon the assistance communication used in the Materia System of Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII. While in the latter game the communication was one way only, Brawls incorporated two-way matchmaking for player battles. The environments were designed in a similar way to Final Fantasy VII and VIII, projecting 3D character models onto 2D pre-rendered backgrounds. Using 3D graphics for the whole game would have put too much strain on the hardware, so 3D environments were reserved for battle sections, with the team still wanting to push the graphical limits of phones. The manga-style story cutscenes were chosen as they best fitted the mobile format. Release A trademark for Code Age Brawls was registered by Square Enix in September 2004 alongside other trademarks relating to the Code Age project. The game was simultaneously announced in Japan and shown off at a Square Enix press conference prior to E3 2005 as the third part of the Code Age project with a projected release in 2005. The game was shown off as part of a compilation video detailing the three Code Age projects. As with the Compilation, each project was abbreviated using a lettering formula; "CAA" stood for Archives, "CAC" for Commanders, and "CAB" for Brawls. It was also shown at the Tokyo Game Show in August 2005. A free trial beta test was from November 10 to November 30. The game released on December 15 for NTT DoCoMo-compatible devices. Code Age Brawls was a subscription-based game, with players needing to pay a monthly fee in order to continue accessing the game. As part its promotion, a lottery campaign was run between its release and January 31, 2006, with the rewards being themed accessories. Players of Commanders could also use a code from that game to gain early access to